[SOLVED] RegEx problem :( please help

[marcusfaye87]

I am trying to match a string that contains 41 or more characters in a row without a newline or space in it.

 

'/[^\n\s]{41,}/i'

 

that's what I have got for the regex, but it's not working :s it's still counting newlines and spaces.

 

any Idea's?

 

EDIT: I'm trying to do this because I don't want to allow things like:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

more than 40 characters without a space or linebreak messes up my layout.

[effigy]

There's no need to use \n with \s. In fact, you can just use \S{41,}. In either case, the pattern matches your string. Also see wordwrap.

[marcusfaye87]

Yes, but I don't want it to always cap at that, just if a part of the string is longer than 40 characters to not allow it.

I'm also allowing youtube codes and such, since they are longer than 40 characters, they need to be allowed

 

<?php
	/** Handle tags */
	if ($post['type'] == 1)
	{
		$tempString = preg_replace ('/\[youtube\](.*)\[\/youtube\]/i', ' ', $post['body']);
		$tempString = preg_replace ('/\[img\](.*)\[\/img\]/i', ' ', $tempString);
	}
	else
	{
		$tempString = $post['body'];
	}

	$tempString = str_replace ('\r', '', $tempString);

	if (preg_match ('/[^\s]{41,}/i', $tempString))
	{
		$errors[] = 'Data overflow, your message cannot contain more than 40 characters without any spaces or linebreaks';
	}
?>

 

that's my code for it

[effigy]

This appears OK. Is a certain string giving you trouble?

 

P.S. You can condense the youtube and img patterns to /\[(img|youtube)\](.*?)\[\/\1\]/i.

 

 

[marcusfaye87]

Well when I add a matches array and print it I get

 

Array ( [0] => \n012345678901234567890123456789\n0123456789 )

Data overflow, your message cannot contain more than 40 characters without any spaces or linebreaks

 

[The string I entered in the form is all nummeric to test, but as you can see it still catches the newlines]

 

code

<?php
	if (preg_match ('/[^\s]{41,}/i', $tempString, $matches))
	{
		print_r ($matches);
		$errors[] = 'Data overflow, your message cannot contain more than 40 characters without any spaces or linebreaks';
	}
?>

[effigy]

That's what you want, right? That means it is being detected.

[marcusfaye87]

No I want a string that has NO spaces and NO newlines =/

I also tried [^\s\n]

 

but it had the same effect

 

I tried just about anything :s

 

[^(\n|\s)]

[^([\n]|[\s])]

....

 

all with no effect

[marcusfaye87]

<?php
	$tempString = str_replace ('\r', '', $tempString);
	$tempString = str_replace ('\n', '[newline]', $tempString);
	$tempString = str_replace ('\s', '[space]', $tempString);

	if (preg_match ('/[^(\[newline\]|\[space\])]{41,}/i', $tempString, $matches))
	{
		print_r ($matches);
		$errors[] = 'Data overflow, your message cannot contain more than 40 characters without any spaces or linebreaks';
	}
?>

this does work, which is weird

[effigy]

<pre>
<?php
$tests = array(
	"0123456789\n0123456789\n0123456789\n0123456789\n0123456789\n0123456789",
	'abc def ghi jkl mnopqrstu',
	'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa',
	'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb',
	'ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc',
);
foreach ($tests as $test) {
	echo $test, '<br><b>';
	echo preg_match('/\S{41,}/', $test) ? 'Overflow!' : 'OK' ;
	echo '</b><hr>';
}
?>
</pre>

 

0123456789

0123456789

0123456789

0123456789

0123456789

0123456789

OK

abc def ghi jkl mnopqrstu

OK

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Overflow!

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

OK

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Overflow!

[marcusfaye87]

yes but try adding 40 characters, then a new line and then another 40 chars

[effigy]

You were using 41 in your pattern, so 40 will be OK. The pattern will need to be changed.

[marcusfaye87]

I don't know why but your way doesn't work for me :s

What I mean is, if you enter EXACTLY 40 characters and then add a newline through the form, it won't match

 

<?php
	$tempString = str_replace ('\n', '[::&newline&::]', $tempString);

	if (preg_match ('/[^(\[\:\:\&newline\&\:\:\]|\s)]{41,}/i', $tempString))
	{
		$errors[] = 'Data overflow, your message cannot contain more than 40 characters without any spaces or linebreaks';
	}
?>

 

When I do it like that it works strangely enough, but if I just use \n it still counts the newline character to the string, making it 42

[marcusfaye87]

I fixed the problem by just changing the newlines to spaces and just checking for spaces

[effigy]

What does this give you?

 

<pre>
<?php
$tests = array(
	str_repeat('a', 40) . "\n" . str_repeat('a', 40),
	str_repeat('a', 41) . "\n" . str_repeat('a', 41),
	str_repeat('a', 42) . "\n" . str_repeat('a', 42),
);
foreach ($tests as $test) {
	echo $test, '<br><b>';
	echo preg_match('/\S{41,}/', $test) ? 'Overflow!' : 'OK' ;
	echo '</b><hr>';
}
?>
</pre>

 

I get:

 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

OK

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Overflow!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Overflow!

 

You pattern will not work. Character classes ([...]) are only a list of characters from which one is picked, unless a quantifier is applied. It will not match strings of characters contained within.